Junk Jettison: Day 8

Clean for tomorrow night's guests.  The Yes Virginias are coming to my house to rehearse, so I had to make room amidst all my junk.  In order for us to have room to set up, I had to clean the downstairs (enclosed carport) room, a.k.a. The Dog Den.  Maybe I should say "rearrange" since it will never be clean as long as the dogs have their way.  And they have us outnumbered.


Here's what I had to do:
-Disassemble the dog crate the Big Oaf hasn't been able to fit into for a year.
-Group the miscellaneous extra lawnmower parts together and stow under the shelving unit until I might need them.
-Put away/throw away the box of stuff we cleaned out of the car 10 months ago.
-Wash dog blanket, dog curtains, dog door mat, dog placemat.  See a pattern here?  Dirty bastards.  I love them.
-Break down boxes to be recycled/composted.
-Move treadmill.
-Move clothes rack.  Currently used for anti-cat plant rack.  Which, of course, fails miserably.  How is it that a fat, lazy cat, who can hardly hurl her bulk over a 2' baby gate without hitting the top, can somehow gain access to a shelf that's at least 5' tall?  And then proceed to eat something she'll inevitably retch up later?  Did it taste good?  Or is it just the lure of forbidden fruit?  Cats.
-Move empty plastic storage boxes awaiting junk for the yardsale.
-Move weedeater.
-Clean dog card table.  (Yeah, I wish they all sat around it, playing poker.  At least then they would make me money, instead of the opposite.)  It's actually the guard tower for Sassafras.  She jumps on top to look out the window and bark at anything that moves.


The room looks pretty good now.  Not to an outsider, I'm sure, but noticeably better.  And I feel accomplished.  We should have guests more often.


Day 9 Goals:
Realistically, not much, since I'll be rehearsing tonight.  Maybe clean the kitchen, post dinner/rehearsal.

Junk Jettison: Days 4-7

Day 4:

1. Prep some food for the remainder of the week and clean 3 things out of the refrigerator while I'm working on the food.   Made chicken and dumplings for the first time ever.  Now I know why Grandma didn't make them as often as I wanted... they're a LOT of work.  But totally worth it.  The C&D satisfied my comfort food craving on a chilly night and brought back fond memories of time spent in the kitchen with my grandma and cousin.  I also roasted bones for beef stock and got that going in the crockpot, made cornbread, zucchini olive breakfast bread, and chicken salad.  Off to a good start for the weekend's food.

2. Find a better home for junk piling up on catchall table.  Nope.

3. Clean dining room table, which is also beginning to look like catchall table.  Nope.

4. Give dogs overdue heartworm preventive.  Didn't even do this.

Day 5:

This was a Friday.  After work, I attended a friend's book reading, then Christian took me out for a sushi dinner as advance payment for helping him film a wedding tomorrow.  Upon returning home, promptly fell asleep on the couch while watching a movie.

Day 6:

Saturday.  Washed two loads of clothes before leaving to help Christian with the wedding.  At wedding from 1 p.m. until 9 p.m., so you know I didn't do anything when I got home besides peel off my wet clothes (rainy outdoor wedding) and go to bed.

However, kudos to co-challenger Amy, who cleaned out a bunch of stuff, including some HUGE 80's eyeglasses.

SEXY!  Not sure these will sell at the yard sale.  Think the Lion's Club will take them? 

Co-challenger Kerry also made weekend progress cleaning clothes out of her closet and organizing all her seed packets for next year's garden.  Woo hoo!!!

Day 7:

On Sunday, I began to tackle the catchall table.  I finally realized why this particular project overwhelms me so much - none of this stuff has a place it "belongs".  I just walk around in circles thinking about where to put it.  Ultimately, I need an organizer box or small secretary/writing desk to hold the important stuff like bills, envelopes, stamps, pens, phone chargers, etc.  Would love to be able to stow a small wastebasket and shredder in there, too, so everything could be centralized.

Day 8 Goals:

Clean for tomorrow night's guests.

Junk Jettison: Day 3

Well...I kinda changed direction last night.  Really wanting to finish my closet, but not energetic enough to get down on my hands and knees to pull out all the shoes and clean the floor, I decided to go through my dresses hanging on the back of the closet door instead.  Junked 6 dresses!  And also uncovered the "art" on the back of the door.

What can I say?  It came with the house.  Not a selling point.


As for my other goals:


1. Prep some food for the remainder of the week.  Did not do this last night, but today at lunch, I put a chicken in the crockpot to make chicken and dumplings tonight.

2. Clean 3 things out of the refrigerator while I'm working on the food.  Only cleaned one thing out.  Wait... does it count that I cleaned out the last of the cookie dough just to make some cookies for my sweet tooth?

Day 4 Goals:

1. See Day 3 Goals.

2. Find a better home for junk piling up on catchall table.

3. Clean dining room table, which is also beginning to look like catchall table.

4. Give dogs overdue heartworm preventive.

Strange Bedfellows

Here's what I came home to find on my side of the bed last night...

He's a cute little potholder I always liked when he hung in Mamaw's kitchen.  I'd never thought of him as creepy until last night.  But it's weird to see him lounging on my pillow with that surprised expression on his face.

I just love Christian's* sense of humor.

(Formerly given the lame moniker "Hub," by yours truly, Christian is my husband, who immediately consented to having his real name used when he found out what I was calling him.  Not much need for anonymity when only 1-3 people read this.)

Junk Jettison: Day 2

Here's the Day 2 progress: 1. Clean out the top shelf in my closet. Done.  Junked a couple of sweaters, and lots of scarves and hats. Discovered a potential "French" Halloween costume.  No, not a French maid.  Prior to our challenge, I had already gone through my clothes. All that's left of cleaning out my closet now are my shoes, then vacuum it out (fur gets in the damnedest places). 2. Do some shredding that's been piling up. This morning, I caught up on my backlogged shredding.  Big oafish dog was highly interested.  Should have let him shred it like he shreds his beds. Day 3 Goals: 1. Prep some food for the remainder of the week. 2. Clean 3 things out of the refrigerator while I'm working on the food.

Junk Jettison: Day 1

The Junk Jettison actually began yesterday, but I didn't start the ticker then, so I'm calling today #1.  Miriam Webster says jettison (v.) means to get rid of as superfluous or encumbering.  I plan to unencumber myself of some superfluous shit!

I did great last night!  (lie)  I actually fell asleep on the couch after a round of grocery shopping (ugh) and dinner (yum), courtesy of my hub.  So, determined not to fall behind, I did my stuff this morning.  Proposed activities are in italics, followed by actual results:

1. Get a big box and sit it in the hallway outside my bedroom.   Who needs a box junking up the hallway, creating marital friction when the hub stubs his toe on it?  I found a junk duffel bag in my closet and just started filling it.

2. Cull at least 5 items from my bedroom.  Done, plus more!  Just from the organizer on the door of my closet, I cleaned 5 purses, 3 belts and a toiletry kit.  Woo hoo!

3. Wish the big oafish dog would fit in the box.  No box.  Decided parts of the big oafish dog would fit in the duffel bag.  Had a little daydream about that.  Particularly about starting with the whacking tail.  There would be plenty of room for that.  Oh well (sigh).  

4. Change my HVAC filter.  Done.  So much fur I could knit a blanket.  But I already have too many blankets.

Day 2 Goals:

1. Clean out the top shelf in my closet.

2. Do some shredding that's been piling up.

Stuff

Following a discussion with a couple of friends last night, I've decided it's time to purge some stuff from my house.  Normally, I would be more of the your-stuff-is-shit-but-my-shit-is-stuff philosophy (see Carlin video below).  But lately I've been thinking my stuff is shit, too.  

I'm on stuff overload.  So I posed to my friends that we do a daily, or at least weekly, update amongst ourselves to motivate and challenge each other.  Maybe set 15 minutes per day as our cleaning/purging goal.  And now I've decided to blog about it.  At least for today.  We'll see if I can keep it up.  If I have to sacrifice the blogging time in order to fulfill the purging/cleaning time, so be it.

Here's what I'm going to do tonight:

1. Get a big box and sit it in the hallway outside my bedroom.

2. Cull at least 5 items from my bedroom (closet, nightstand, jewelry box, etc).

3. Wish the big oafish dog would fit in the box.

4. Change my HVAC filter.

Tomorrow:

1. Brag about it, or lament laziness/inability to find 15 minutes.  Try to be honest.

2. Set new goal.

Want to join us?  The more people to motivate/guilt, the better!

Biggest Loser: Spelling Bee

Canton, Mississippi

The picture says it all.

Hunting Goodwill

May 23rd - Totally scored at Goodwill!!!  That's right, it deserves three exclamation points!

1. Really cool retro lamp I didn't need but HAD to buy...$1.99

2. Blender jar to replace the one I broke...$2.99.  The motor base had been sitting unused in my pantry for 6 months.  Jars online were $12 and up without shipping.

3. Stainless steel stock pot with pasta strainer insert and steamer basket insert...$12.99.  I've been wanting one of these but was too frugal to lay down the money.  This one still had the original $49.97 price tag on it.  Woo hoo!

Like butta...

May 1st - Shake, shake, shake...shake, shake, shake...shake your butter!  Homemade butter is SO easy to make if you have a source for good milk.  Utilizing the low-tech method, I poured a pint of cream into a quart mason jar and shook it until it turned to butter.  It's a pretty amazing process.  You don't even have to shake hard or fast, just a gentle back and forth motion does the trick.  While watching a movie, I shook my jar for about 35 minutes, and just when I thought nothing was going to happen, the cream started to feel like it was sloshing softer.  That was the first stage...basically whipped cream that clings to the sides of the jar.  Keep shaking and you begin to get a cottage cheese consistency as the milk fat separates from the "buttermilk" and starts pulling away from the sides of the jar.  Keep going and the fat globules start sticking together and turning yellow (I read that the natural yellow color is from the chlorophyll the happy, grass-fed cows ingested).  Once you see those yellow globs sloshing around in milky clear liquid, you can stop shaking!  Strain off the buttermilk and save it for another use.  Put the butter in a bowl, run cold water over it while pressing it against the side of the bowl.  This washing removes the rest of the milk and helps prolong the life of the butter.  Once you squeeze all the water out of the butter, you can salt it to taste and refrigerate it!  Yum!

Things I know now, and will try next time:  My butter may have taken longer because my cream was fresh-out-of-the-refrigerator cold.  It can be made in a blender or with a mixer in much less time.  I've also read that the butter has more flavor if the cream sits out at room temperature for 8-12 hours to culture.  Guess we'll see next time!

Props to Brown Family Dairy for supplying my milk and cream.  They don't pay me, but I love their products and will continue to pay them!

Here we go 'round the mulberry bush...

Bush?!?  Does anyone else think that's a severe understatement?  When hub and I bought our house, I wondered what kind of HUGE tree was in our backyard.  After some research, I thought I had my answer, but I had to wait until the following spring to be sure.  My regret is that I didn't harvest the mulberries that first year.  But I've wised up since then.  Mulberries are DE-LIC-IOUS!  Especially when eaten straight off the tree or mixed with strawberries for jam.

So your city doesn't recycle glass and you drink a lot of wine?

What do you do with the empty bottles?  Throw them away?  No!  There are too many bottle DIY projects (other than the ubiquitous Southern bottle tree) out there to waste your resource.  Here's my interpretation of one.  Wish I could claim the idea as my own, but I saw it in some magazine a couple of years ago.  The bottle border:

Balcony gardening

May 19th - Gardening setbacks:

1. Too little sunlight in my front yard to effectively grow vegetables that aren't 12 feet of foliage in their attempt to reach said sunlight.
2. Fenced back yard has too many dogs who will eat ANYTHING, including mulberries, pecans with shells, avocado peels, you name it.  Okay that's only one dog, but the other two don't really respect the garden plants I've tried to grow in their domain.
3. My general laziness.  (Maybe this should have been setback number one.  Oh well, I'm too lazy to move it now.)  I have an unfenced area of yard that receives plenty of sunlight and was historically used for a garden.  Problem is, it needs to be bushwhacked, cultivated, and fenced to keep the deer from having a buffet.  And I have three jobs.  Sometimes more.  (WARNING: Rant impending.  For those of you who don't appreciate rants, please feel free to skip this section!)  I'm tired of working for money.  I'm ready to work for a living.  And by living, I mean actually living...not being stressed out about what I might be forgetting at one job because something came up at another job.  Or wishing I could help more with my hub's business.  Or wanting to simplify and feeling unable to do it.  Jeremy Rifkin wrote in Time Wars, "We have quickened the pace of life only to become less patient.  We have become more organized but less spontaneous, less joyful.  We are better prepared to act on the future, but less able to enjoy the present and reflect on the past."   Amen, brother!  Preaching to the choir here!  I crave simplicity and time spent more productively.  Like gardening.  (Okay, I'm back on track now.  Please continue reading.  If anyone out there is actually reading.)

Because of said setbacks, and thanks to dead decorative plants on the balcony at my office, I've decided to garden on the balcony!  The plants needed replacing anyway, so why not plant fruits, vegetables, and herbs?  So I did.  The balcony faces west, I'm watering about every other day, and so far, the plants are thriving.  I have two tomatoes (Arkansas Traveller and Black Krim) planted with parsley, nasturtiums, and marigolds, two bell peppers planted with basil (Red Rubin and Sweet) and oregano, two Climax blueberries, and a pot of rosemary and thyme.

After watching stunted shade growth, it's really exciting to see happy plants!  Hope I get to harvest something soon.

Strawberry Season

May 17th - Picked strawberries at a local farm and got home just before it poured down rain.  My strawberry jam supply has run out, so it's time to replenish the larder.  I would like to take a moment to thank all the strawberry pickers of the world.  As my sore legs and back reminded me, it ain't easy work.  

I love budgeting.

Most people who know me are wondering who I am and what I did with Lisa.  I know it sounds weird.  And you can bet I wouldn't have said, "I love budgeting" 3 months ago when I likened it to having my hair pulled out while living like an ascetic.  But I've come around to the idea.  Guess it's because I'm just anal and controlling enough that seeing where every penny goes give me a giddy sense of empowerment.

In the past three months, I've paid more on my one remaining credit card than I would have thought possible, and have gone no further into debt.  CC is paying off his last card as well, and when we finish, we'll only owe on the mortgage.

My biggest weakness is dining out (because I LOVE food), but having a set budget for that means we get to eat out once a week, and the anticipation makes it even more special.  And CC has been great about talking me down when I'm weak.  I've also discovered I can make many things I love at home.  I mean, I've always enjoyed cooking, but I just never thought about making my own satay or kimchi or yogurt.  Did I mention empowerment?  It's so cool to realize I can easily make food that would cost $3.69+ a pint at the grocery store for only about $1.50 and a little time.

I was under the mistaken impression I was in control of my money without a budget. I was of the "Budget?  We don't need no stinkin' budget!" school.  Now I've seen the light.  And, while I don't expect this post to convert everyone to budgeting (I'm not a missionary on any level), I just wanted you to know it's working for me.

Mujadara

Dinner last night was a vegetarian meal of mujadara (lentils and rice with caramelized onions),  roasted rutabaga and parsnips, and sauteed spinach with garlic.  Mmmmm.  Comfort food.

Owls are scary smart.

I just finished reading Wesley the Owl by Stacey O'Brien after stumbling upon it at my local public library.  If you love animals or just love animal stories, I highly recommend reading this book about a biologist's experiences living 18 years with a barn owl.  It's amazing.

Andouille gumbo

After a trip this weekend to the Farmers' Market (the store, not the gathering), I decided to make andouille gumbo last night.  I love Liz and Frank and their Market so much that I'm touting them without any compensation.  They have great meat, veggies, spices, bulk goods, dairy, international goods, and prices.  Stop by and see them sometime.

I used their andouille sausage, okra I had frozen last summer and homemade shrimp broth.  Hopefully, next time I make this, I can use homegrown parsley, onions and garlic as well.  Keep your fingers crossed for my garden!

Science project?

Ode to crawfish

Colorful cajun crustaceans, how I love you.  I do things to you I wouldn't do to any other food.  I twist you, I suck your head, I pinch your tail.  All in the name of love.  And love hurts.  You make my lips burn.  You make my fingers raw.  And if I happen to scratch something delicate, like my eye (why oh why does my eye always betray me and itch after I've dipped into the spice?), you reward me with a blazing explosion of pain.  Yet I love you still.  You are my drug.  Please don't ever leave me.

The afterglow aftermath.

Crab boil...mmmmm

We LOVE snow crab legs.  A couple of nights ago, we decided to boil some crab legs I had bought on sale for $4.99/lb.  Wow...I don't think I'll ever pay retail price for crab again!  And we were out of crab boil, so I made it myself from spices we had on hand.  Virtually free, and TASTY.  Here's what the boil looked like:

Sorry, no pictures of the crab legs.  I was too intent on eating them to photograph them.

Maybe I was wrong.

It's beautiful here today.  The temperature is supposed to climb to 60 degrees today and 65 degrees over the weekend.  Perfect for the little daffodils.  And perfect for my state of mind.  Maybe I won't have to take to the bed after all.  At least not this weekend.

I think the daffodils have jumped the gun

My daffodils are ready to pop.  That's encouraging, since I've been wondering if this bitter winter would EVER end.  But it's still cold, and I hope the daffodils aren't just teasing me.  My fragile psyche can't take it.

Making kimchi: Part Two

February 15th - While off work on my snow morning, I finished the kimchi.  At least to the point of letting it sit and ferment more.

To the brined cabbage, I added fresh ginger, garlic and scallions, the Korean red pepper, salt and sugar.

Here's the first jar, filled and capped with a bag of brine.

I filled one quart and one pint with the original kimchi mixture.  To the rest, I added 1 teaspoon of the dried anchovy mix seen in the photo above.  I've eaten kimchi both ways, so I wanted to try making it both ways.  The finished count was 3 quarts total.

 

Pretty, isn't it?  Now I just have to wait 3 to 6 days, depending on how sour I want the taste.

Snow day!

February 15th - We finally got snow.  It's kinda weird when locales south of us get snow and we don't.  I mean, we ARE in the Mid-South, so it's freaky when the Deep and Coastal South get dumped on and we don't.  So in celebration, I took a snow morning!

Here's what my yard looked like when I peered out the window this morning:

But I should have taken a snow afternoon, because this is what I saw from the office windows later in the day:

Making kimchi: Part One

February 14th - I love kimchi.  love, Love, LOVE!

I decided to celebrate the day by attempting to make kimchi, that irresistably spicy, tangy, fermented cabbage pickle from Korea.  A few months ago, I discovered a book, The Joy of Pickling by Linda Ziedrich, at the local library, and had to buy it so I could try the recipes.  Naturally, kimchi was the first thing I tried.  A few years ago, my friend Nayoon and her hubby came for a visit, and she brought me Korean red pepper and anchovy powder.  I finally used it.  Thanks, Nayoon!

Here's the Chinese cabbage being chopped.  Two heads, cored and chopped into 2" pieces.

Here's the cabbage packed into the churn Mom loaned me.  Thanks, Mom!

Here's the cabbage with brine, weighted by a plate and a heavy glass.  Now we wait 12 hours for the cabbage to brine and reduce in volume.

Oops!  Almost forgot the daikon radish.  Chopped that and added it to the brining cabbage.  Re-weighted it and covered it with a dishtowel.  Now...back to waiting.  Impatiently, I might add.

Bathroom ceiling: check!

On February 7th, when most Americans were glued to their seats in front of the television, watching the Superbowl, I got busy.  My friend Amy came over to help and keep me motivated.  In exchange, I cooked chicken satay and sesame noodles with peanut sauce.  Mmmm.  But back to business...

The bathroom-in-progress hadn't progressed in a year.  To paraphrase splatgirl at  http://moderninmn.blogspot.com/ , usable is not done.  Once the bathroom was to a usable point, we learned to live with all the other undone stuff.  Like the ceiling, the trim, the stripped down closet and the walls.

The breaking point came when I was scrubbing mildew off the ceiling (flat white paint - WTF?!?) for the THIRD time.  I told CC he might actually have to commit me if the ceiling mildewed one more time before we took care of priming and painting it.  At the very least, I would have to take to the bed.  Mildew is depressing.

So Amy came over.  First we primed.  Fun, thick stuff.  Then we took a break to check on the marinating status of the chicken and have a beverage.  The primer dried.  We didn't watch it.

I decided to custom-mix the final color from leftovers and oops paint.  Amy and I thought the first attempt was beautiful in the can, but WAY too dark on the ceiling.  CC concurred.  No way the tiny window and lights could have compensated.  So, we added some white trim paint to lighten the color, and voila!  What you see is what we got!  It turned out to be this beautiful silvery sage that looks great with the shower tile and is neutral enough to complement the blue beadboard wainscoting.  Can I get a WOO-HOO?